by Marty Green ·
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The School Committee has decided against any form of administrative union with Boxborough. On Monday night, the committee voted unanimously not to pursue the union agreement, citing an absence of community support for the idea.
School Committee chairman Keith Cheveralls said that the comments the committee had received at its public hearing on April 2 had been opposed to the project. He also reported that phone calls and emails he had received since the hearing had been consistently negative about the proposal. In addition, an online petition asking the committee to reject the idea had garnered about 150 signatures.
“A lot of the commentary was along the lines of, ‘Are you out of your minds?’” Cheveralls said.
Noting that Boxborough had first proposed sharing a superintendent in July 2010, Cheveralls said the Harvard School Committee had had a duty to consider the idea seriously.
“The financial background was dire,” Cheveralls said, with the nation in an economic downturn that was “the worst since the Great Depression.”
The union proposal, Cheveralls said, was one possible response to the need to look for savings in new ways, as the Finance Committee had directed all town departments to do. The union plan gradually expanded beyond the idea of sharing a superintendent to include sharing six administrative positions including the special education director and the food services manager, for a possible savings of between $172,846 and $248,009 in the first year.
“I make no apologies—none—for doing this work,” Cheveralls said. “It is vital to this community . . . anything less and our relationship with the FinCom would be challenged.”
Cheveralls also reported to the School Committee that information on the Acton and Boxborough school websites indicated that the two towns were taking an increasingly favorable attitude toward full K-12 regionalization.
Other members of the School Committee expressed a range of reactions before taking a vote.
Committee member Patricia Wenger said that her position on the union issue had been misquoted in an interview that appeared in last week’s Press. She said she had been excited about the range of opportunities available to Harvard to investigate new administrative models, not about the union model specifically.
SusanMary Redinger said the union model might have financial advantages, but she concluded, “It’s not the right thing to do for our schools if the public isn’t behind it.”
Kirsten Wright referred to her own teaching background, saying, “I have experienced firsthand this [union model] being a viable arrangement. I think this is something that could work, but I agree there needs to be community support for it. . . .It is hard to look critically at making changes when you have an excellent school district, because there is more at risk.”
Piali De expressed particular concern about the legal difficulties that might arise in dissolving a Harvard-Boxborough union, if one town wanted to do so and the other did not agree.
De also expressed worries about Harvard’s staying in its own “shrinking educational bubble,” given the forecast for declining enrollments. She said, “I do worry about us being too small as a school district. Where is that new, fresh perspective coming from?”
Maureen Babcock, who represents the Devens Educational Advisory Committee, said she did not think that the union offered significant financial benefits. She suggested using funds from the Devens contract to support the administrative positions in question if necessary.
Finance director Lorraine Leonard said she had originally favored combining the superintendent’s position with Boxborough, but not the other positions. She suggested that a full-time superintendent’s position, which the union model would ensure, might attract a bigger pool of candidates than a part-time position for Harvard alone, a possibility that the School Committee is still considering.
When the chairman asked if there were any public comments on the issue, Deborah Skauen-Hinchliffe of Still River spoke in support of the union plan.
“I am certainly in favor of combining, if possible, the superintendent’s position,” she said. “I would like to have the money for the schools, for the children.”
Once the committee had voted not to pursue the union model further, Cheveralls summarized his own concerns, saying he had not wanted to influence the voting. He said that only 41 percent of Harvard residents have children in the schools, but those were the residents who had spoken out on this issue.
“The 59 percent must know that we are looking for ways to save money,” Cheveralls said.